Why the Royal Family Finally Reacted Prince Andrew.

Prince Andrew and The Queen

Questions have swirled for years concerning Prince Andrew, the Duke of York’s relationship with condemned sex offender Jeffrey Epstein—including an allegation that the royal had sex with a 17-year-old lady who was trafficked by the disgraced financier. The Queen’s second son, with the backing of Buckingham Palace, has continually forcefully denied wrongdoing.

But just days after Prince Andrew gave a calamitous BBC interview concerning his relationship with Epstein, which included him oral the communication he did not regret the “very useful” friendship, for the palace to react. On Wednesday, Andrew released an announcement saying he would “step back” from public duties for the “foreseeable future.”

He did not willingly speak to U.S. authorities investigating Epstein.

“We all assume she’s this lovely and charming old lady, but she is [the] monarch and she will get terribly, very angry. It takes quite a lot to get her angry, and I think that maybe she feels her son is not telling the truth and maybe she feels he has to pay for it,” says Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine, adding that the Queen likely consulted her eldest son Prince Charles, who is poised to succeed her on the throne, on what action to require. “I expect [Charles] is completely furious, as a result of its damaging—whatever manner you cross-check it, it’s damaging.”

The hour-long interview on Saturday was meant to place to rest allegations that have surfaced in court documents since at least 2015. Following Epstein’s death by suicide in August, pressure has been mounting on Andrew to answer questions on his relationship with Epstein. Instead, it resulted within the famously-discreet royal family dominating headlines around the world, as well on U.S. lawyers seeking justice for Epstein’s alleged victims calling for the Duke to answer questions under oath.

Following Wednesday’s announcement, U.S.-based attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing some of Epstein’s victims, advised that the Duke could be served with a subpoena.

“It was unsustainable when the interview he gave that he might continue in any variety of public position,” says writer Bates, former royal correspondent for the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper. “The fact that he didn’t think it necessary on screen, as his initial priority, to sympathize with the victims of Epstein—I would have thought had he taken any advice at all, that would have been the first factor he would have been told to do.”

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It’s not the first time that the Duke or other members of the house have faced controversy. In a 1994 TV documentary, Prince Charles admitted his infidelity throughout his wedding to Princess Diana. The following year, Diana gave an explosive TV interview to the BBC, revealing more details concerning their wedding. Both instances gained significant, and largely unwelcome, attention from the British press and the public.

The scandal is of quite a different nature, with allegations involving sex trafficking by Epstein and calls for enforcement from the other side of the Atlantic to get involved.

Dickie Arbiter, a royal commentator and former press secretary to the Queen, tells TIME that the family hasn’t faced such backlash “on this scale” since Edward viii abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry American woman Wallis Simpson; a scandal that caused a national crisis.

It’s also new territory for the Duke; the royal who was nicknamed “Air Miles Andy” by the British press in the 2000s because of his expenditure on foreign visits is now facing pressure to speak to the U.S. prosecutors who are still investigating Epstein’s alleged crimes. “Andrew has always been pretty obtuse. He includes a sense of title and customarily speaking imperviousness to criticism,” says Bates. “I suspect what he was expecting was an easier ride than he got, but he probably felt he dealt with it okay, which is just delusional.”

Royal observers say Wednesday’s swift announcement seems to be “damage limitation,” amid many businesses retreating their support for Andrew’s charitable endeavors likewise as students at the University of Huddersfield lobbying to get rid of him as chancellor. “Normally the palace doesn’t move that quickly, however as a result of the appalling message surrounding the interview, the Queen and her advisers set that the sole answer to the matter was a fast answer,” says Seward. “To actually have derision heaped upon him like Prince Andrew has [had], I don’t suppose it’s ever happened before.”

In addition, Arbiter and other experts counsel that Andrew likely didn’t clear the interview in detail with other members of the royal family, or seek the palace’s advice on how to handle the questions.